North Korea Preparing to Dispatch 30,000 Troops? Putin's Brutal Calculus Behind Additional Deployment Scenarios

The Ukrainian government has claimed that Russia is making preparations to accommodate an additional 30,000 North Korean troops.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated in an address on the 25th local time that "Russia intends to receive an additional 30,000 troops from North Korea" and that "preparations have been underway in Russia's Voronezh Oblast to accommodate them since last month."

If true, this scale is more than double the estimated 14,000 North Korean soldiers previously deployed to areas such as Russia's Kursk region.

President Zelenskyy claimed that "North Korea is even preparing to hand over new ballistic missile launchers."

Experts assess that Russia is relying on outside sources to replenish personnel losses due to the political burden associated with a large-scale mobilization order.

According to President Zelenskyy, the Russian military recruited 221,000 personnel this year, but during the same period, 131,000 were killed in action and about 93,000 were wounded, bringing total personnel losses to approximately 225,500.

Consequently, if newly drafted North Korean troops take over rear guard duties or border defense, it will free up the regular Russian military to concentrate its forces on major offensive axes such as Donetsk.

While the additional North Korean troops claimed by Ukraine reach corps-level scale, they are expected to be dispersed and deployed at the brigade or regiment level under Russian military command on the actual front lines.

There is a high likelihood they will be mobilized for a variety of tasks ranging from guarding rear military facilities and supply lines to combat support missions such as artillery, engineering, and drone reconnaissance.

The Ukrainian side analyzes that the additional deployment of North Korean troops is not meant to turn the tide of the war in a single stroke, but rather part of Russia's war-prolonging strategy to tie down Ukraine's reserve forces across multiple axes and continue a war of attrition.

Reported by Lee Hyeon-yeong | Video by Seo Byeong-wook | Graphics by Lee Su-min | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.